


In Between the Leaves and Flowers

by ThisCat



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Stays the Night, Crowley's Plants (Good Omens), Gen, Nothing much happens, Only a shipfic in the sense that every IC fic of these two implies a ship, post-Armagedidn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-15
Packaged: 2020-06-29 04:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19822522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisCat/pseuds/ThisCat
Summary: Aziraphale had never really been to Crowley's flat before. He hadn't realized just how many plants the place had accumulated, or what kinds.





	In Between the Leaves and Flowers

Aziraphale had never been to Crowley’s flat before. Not since it was bought. As a meeting place, it was just never convenient, not least because Crowley was the one of them with the car.

He would easily admit he was a little excited to see it, now.

“Well, this is it,” Crowley said, letting the door snap shut behind them. For a moment, he hesitated, looking down at the spotless floor under their feet. A look of confusion flashed across his face before he shook it off. “I’ve, uh, just make yourself at home.”

With that, he disappeared around a corner and left Aziraphale to explore the place on his own.

Aziraphale didn’t mind. He looked around with interest as he gingerly hung his coat by the door.

The half-lit, brutalist décor came as no surprise. Neither did the art, placed just so along the walls, all classical, ranging from tasteful to amusingly not. Nor did the numerous plants. He knew what to expect from Crowley by now.

It was still a delight to walk around looking. While not remotely his own aesthetic, the place was beautifully designed. All the art was of great quality and well maintained. Nearly every piece would likely be worth millions at an auction, if not billions. Aziraphale knew better than to believe they were displayed for their material value.[1] They held the same value here as the plants; sentimental and aesthetic.

The plants were of course as gorgeous as they had ever been.

Aziraphale ran his fingers lightly over the leaf of an absolutely stunning orchid and could sense a core of sheer terror that seemed to be keeping it in bloom. A smile graced his lips. Possibly, he should disapprove of that, but all he felt was a deep, exasperated fondness. As hobbies go for a demon, scaring plants was more than harmless.

And there was love there as well. Tough love, yes, but Crowley clearly put a lot of effort into his plants. He had always cared deeply for them.

They had multiplied since the last time Aziraphale saw them, admittedly over a century ago. Crowley had only gotten better with them over the decades. A few of the surviving originals could still be spotted among the newcomers, now grown into large, weathered creatures, the kind of potted plant that would survive a housefire with only mild burns.

There were so many of them. Walking through the rooms and halls of the flat, Aziraphale felt almost as if he was exploring a jungle, each wall lined with shades of green and vibrant spots of colour, some plants hanging from the ceiling or climbing obediently up the walls. The air was cool and steeped with the scents of life. Here and there he had to stop to examine a particular flower or vine, and he recognized fewer than half. Some, he suspected were meant to be extinct.

Not so much a jungle, perhaps, as a garden, tended by the most meticulous and experienced gardener to ever walk the Earth.

Aziraphale was smiling, breathing deeply to smell the flowers spaced perfectly apart for their scents to mingle but not clash, when he walked through a doorway and came face to face with the ultimate proof of his garden analogy.

The sight took his breath away for a moment, leaving him staring, and then he drew a deep breath to catch the sweet haze of a hundred white blossoms hanging from the branches of a tree.

Not a large tree, comparatively, but the upper branches nearly brushed Crowley’s high ceiling and the roots were bursting from the gigantic pot placed in the middle of the room. It was, undeniably, a fully-fledged tree.

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered. “How?”

“It wasn’t all that,” Crowley said, coming up from somewhere behind him. “I mean, it’s hardly the original tree, just a cutting. Was a right pain to talk it into rooting, the stubborn bastard.”

His voice was derisive, but Aziraphale could hear the swell of pride below the surface.

“How did you get in to take it?” he asked.

“It’s not that hard,” Crowley answered. “I mean, the place hasn’t moved over the last six millennia, and security hasn’t gotten any _better_. They’re not meant to let humans in, obviously, but humanity doesn’t even remember where it is so that’s not hard, and I’ve snuck in before.”

Aziraphale reluctantly looked back at his demon, but he found that Crowley also had his eyes on the tree, slit pupils blown wide and round with happiness.

Content with that, Aziraphale turned again to look at the tree in full bloom growing in Crowley’s flat. The painfully familiar apple tree.

“A genuine tree of knowledge,” he said, tasting the words. “Won’t that cause trouble?”

“Nah,” Crowley said. “Not like the damage can be done twice. They’re just very good apples, now. And really, all apples came from that tree in the first place, so this isn’t that different.”

Aziraphale knit his eyebrows together.

“Wait,” he said. “If all apples came from Eden, how come they aren’t all…” deep, blood red, dripping with flavour so heavy you could taste it in the air, cold and crisp and clear, “…more perfect? I can’t see why anyone would breed that out.”

Crowley hissed a laugh, stepping closer until they were shoulder to shoulder in the doorway and he could gesture at the tree. “See, angel, apples don’t work like that. They’re not like most things, where you can just get a good one and breed that and the kids will look the same. With apples, you’ve got to get lucky.”

“Oh?” said Aziraphale, again looking to his friend and this time successfully meeting his eyes.

Crowley grinned, almost-fangs on display and snake eyes reacting to the smallest change in the light.

“Yeah,” he said. “If you grow apples from seeds, the fruit’ll be too small or sour or bitter or completely tasteless. Even this tree won’t give anything good if you grow anything from its seeds. You have to plant a few hundred, and then, if you’re lucky, you’ll get a combination of genes that gives something better, that almost resembles the original. If you want more of those apples, you’ve got to take cuttings of that one tree. That’s how you get apple cultivars, you know?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “I suppose I’ve never wondered before. It sounds like a metaphor.”

“Mmh, maybe it is,” Crowley said, detaching himself from Aziraphale to walk around the room with a plant mister, taking care of the rest of the plants growing in the shadow of the tree. “Mostly, I just like apples.”

As if he was drawn in without the anchor of Crowley at his side, Aziraphale stepped closer until he could brush his fingers over the bark of the tree.

It nearly hummed under his hand. There was a core of fear here too, of course, but here it was weaker, bound up in the force of vitality running through the wood. This one was harder to intimidate, perhaps, and judging from the bright white flowers spreading all around him, needed it less.

The scent now swaddling him from all sides almost made him dizzy, and he breathed deeply and looked up again at where the leaves reached for the ceiling.

“It’s growing too large for the room, isn’t it,” he said.

“Mhm,” Crowley hummed, not looking up from his work. “I was planning to cut it to size.”

“But?” Aziraphale asked, because he could hear a but.

Crowley finished misting his plants and stood up, stretching and looking, not back towards the tree, but up, at the ceiling light filtering through the leaves. He drew a breath and let it out in a long sigh. “Maybe I just need a garden,” he said.

Aziraphale still had a hand on the trunk, still half absorbed in the life thrumming under his fingertips, but he could tell he needed to step carefully here. “Oh?” he put forward.

“Just figured it was time for a change of pace,” Crowley said, shifting just enough to meet Aziraphale’s gaze from the corner of his eye. “Don’t you?”

And for an instant, Aziraphale could see it as clearly as he could see the flowers around him.

A garden, green and vibrant and well-kept, filled with flowers and trees of all kinds, maybe a small stream, guided on a winding path from one side to another, not quite Eden, but shaped by a hand skilled enough that it could be mistaken for it, by someone who never saw the real deal.

Not a garden wall. Eden was the first taste of Earth either of them got, and they would both love it for that forever, but Crowley always disliked the way the wall made it feel like a fishbowl, like a place to keep your pets. No wall or fence, then, but a hedge, maybe, as carefully kept as the rest of the garden, blooming in spring, bearing berries in autumn, and with just enough space between each bush that determined children would find ways to sneak in to steal berries or fruit or just an adventure.

Crowley himself, his hair likely grown out again, it tended to go in waves, and held out of his face by a clip or a small bun. Crowley with his eyes uncovered and bright in the sanctity of his own space, his hands buried in the soil, or carrying a basket of gardening tools along twisting trails marked through the foliage, or bent over a poor runt of a bush, whispering careful threats to keep it in line with the others. Crowley as a snake, slithering along the roots, hiding in the tree branches to startle sneaky children or just to bask in the sun.

A gate, yes, but one without a lock, just elegant wrought iron detailing. Flowers, maybe. Something customised and suitable. A driveway for a sleek, black car, and then a door to a house. A balcony, with a view of the garden and, possibly, the ocean beyond it. Large windows here, to let in enough light to read by, and for the potted plants not yet ready or not strong enough to be planted outside. A dark and dry room there, with room for dozens and dozens of bookshelves.

Aziraphale took his hand off the tree. Blinking a time or two, he wondered why the air smelled just a hint of seaside sunlight on a summer day.

Crowley was half turned around, thumbs hooked in his back pockets, carefully nonchalant, and his eyes were still on Aziraphale, his question still hanging in the air.

“Ah,” Aziraphale said. “Yes. Maybe so.”

* * *

[1] Or at least, for that alone. Given two alternatives, all else being the same, Crowley would always pick the more expensive one. He _was_ still a demon.


End file.
